These are my links for March 9th:

• Tax Justice Network: Wish you were here - Jersey, 12/13 March - TJN in action in Jersey

  But will any opponents dare turn up?

• A Brit's Dutch Courage | Brit Insurance tax recession Netherlands | City Blog | Sky News Blogs - I did a slot for Sky - nice to see they give me credit on their web site
• FT.com / Comment & analysis / Letters - Offshore centres play an important role in global finance - The FT is really feeding its advertisers

  Here it gives Geoff Cook of Jersey Finance the chance to join the FT rat pack supporting maintenance of offshore abuse

  I wonder why?

• Debtonation » Blog Archive » Quantitative easing (QE) made easy - Not for the faint-hearted

  But read it all the same

• Asking the big questions: Editorial on Gordon Brown and the economic debate | - "Christians in this country used to be much more openly engaged in economic questions. There was the Faith in the City report of 1985, which attacked the social effects of Thatcherism so boldly that Norman Tebbit angrily dismissed it as Marxism. And around the turn of this decade there was the Jubilee debt campaign. But this is a trail that has gone cold. It may be that Dr Williams has been cowed by his self-professed lack of economic expertise, or perhaps he has been distracted by the Anglican communion's internal battles over the position of gays and women. Whatever the reason, it is to be hoped that this weekend is followed by more interventions - and not only from the Church of England. When it comes to economic policy at least, Gordon Brown was wrong: this is a very good time to be a novice. Many of the experts' assumptions have fallen apart, and the argument over how to put them together again should be open to all."

  Time those of us of faith were heard more. Count me in.

• UK Government debt: new data shows the Conservative Party is wrong | ToUChstone blog: A public policy blog from the TUC - "George Osborne has been banging on again about the dire state of the UK’s public finances. But how bad is the situation really compared to equivalent economies?

  IMF data provides a clue and is proving a very useful way of cutting through the fog of misleading political debate in the UK . The IMF’s various comparisons of international responses to the economic crisis show four key things about the UK:

  1. Our outstanding public debt as a ratio of GDP is well below the average for the nine large economies studied by the IMF; UK public debt is now at 58.2% against an average of 86.9%. It was 42.9% before the crisis against an average of 74.7%."

  'Nuff said

• FSA probes Resolution chairman Clive Cowdery | - "Several of the companies involved in the battle for Resolution saw their share prices swing wildly while its future remained uncertain. It was reported in December 2007 that the FSA was investigating whether the market abuse rules had been violated."

  It did always smell funny.

  But of course, nothing is proven as yet.

• FT.com / UK - Industry freezes pay in bid to save jobs - "Two-thirds of manufacturers have frozen pay or are considering doing so in an attempt to stave off redundancies and hold on to skilled staff according to an industry survey."

  The new economic reality is that we will not be as materially well off

  Let's begin to get used to it

  We can all live rather well on this planet if only we use it better and share better

  This is the start

• FT.com / UK / Business - Mandelson says Vauxhall is in ‘trouble’ - "Vauxhall, the carmaker, is in “terrible trouble”, Lord Mandelson conceded on Sunday, as he set out plans to work with Germany to try to save the European subsidiaries of General Motors."

  Bust is another word...

  And I'm afraid that in a green world we don't need all the car makers we have. This one may well go to the wall.

• FT.com / World - Summers calls for boost to demand - "Barack Obama’s top economic adviser has urged world leaders to pump more public money into the economy in a co-ordinated effort to boost demand and lift the world out of recession.

  In an interview with the Financial Times, Lawrence Summers said the urgent need for a short-term increase in spending by governments temporarily overrode the longer-term goal of tackling the global imbalances many economists believe caused the financial crisis."

  Agreed.

  So spend that £150 billion into the economy Gordon - don't use it all to buy debt. That's the equivalent of saving.

• FT.com / China / Economy & Trade - Plunging assets cost $50,000bn - "Falls in the value of financial assets worldwide might have reached more than $50,000bn, equivalent to a year’s global economic output, the Asian Development Bank will warn on Monday."

  Just to sober us all up

  But I'd remind you: they never were really worth that much anyway

• Jersey raises floodwalls as tax storm brews - International Herald Tribune - Now those associated with Jersey's financial services industry are mustering their defences.
• Editorial: It's hypocrisy to leave British tax havens open | - But cracking down on havens would serve a purpose more profound than raising cash for an indebted government. It presents an opportunity to recast the debate around taxation in moral terms. An axiom of the now discredited economic orthodoxy of recent years was that any taxation on business was undesirable, since it discouraged enterprise. By extension, the less companies (and individuals) had to pay, the more competitive they would be, bringing economic advantages - employment, cheap goods etc - to all. That view is contained even in the term "tax haven", with its connotations of sanctuary.

  A better expression is "secrecy jurisdictions", where, along with the profits of legal activity, the spoils of fraud, terrorism, drug trafficking and plunder by despotic regimes are hidden. That is the company that global businesses keep when they operate offshore.

• Brown does a U-turn on tax havens with blacklist | - As preparations for the G20 meeting gather pace, the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development is also poised to produce its own blacklist of secrecy jurisdictions, where many structured investment vehicles and collateralised debt obligations have been based.
• FT.com / Global Economy - Tax havens fear ‘indiscriminate’ crackdown - A rearguard action to fend off the “action against tax and regulatory havens” threatened by Gordon Brown and other world leaders is being launched by some of Britain’s Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories.